On February 20, 2011 former motocross champion Jimmy Button and his former trainer Cory Worf will be riding bicycles 2428 miles from San Diego CA to Daytona Beach FL. The objective is to raise money for spinal cord research.
Middle of nowhere to Del Rio
Same rough roads, same wind, same hills and same heat.
Highlight of the day was passing the Pecos River and seeing the awesome rock walls around it. We rode into the wind all day again today. The good thing is we are supposed to be done with the hills but probably not the wind. We are both hoping the roads get a lot smoother as well. I guess we will just need to wait and see what happens tomorrow.
JB & Cory
Eastbound & Down
27 miles past Marathon to the middle of nowhere.
The day started out extremely hot, 87 degrees at 10:00am. Jimmy had major muscle spasms and stomach cramps. Some times the heat is unbearable for Jimmy’s injury so he had to ride with his shirt open the entire day.
We stopped in Sanderson, TX for lunch where we had to change a tire because of road debris. Immediately after lunch Jimmy’s left leg spasmimed due to the heat which forced us to slow down 4 miles per hour.
Once again the road was rough, which seems to be standard for Texas. The 2600 feet of descending we did was off set by the head wind that we encountered the entire day.
We are holed in Comstock, TX with no internet or phone service but we were able to get our TV to work after being out of commission for the last 4 days.
Highlights of the day:
Very courteous drivers today, an airstrip in the middle of nowhere and we met a fellow cyclist, Adam, who was riding from Ashville, North Carolina to Phoenix with his final destination being Seattle, WA.
JB & Cory
Eastbound & Down
Day 20 was supposed to be our halfway point on the ride but it ended up being a rest day because of how hard the week has been. After we rested most of the day and did our laundry we took an easy 27 mile ride. We actually got to meet a lot of cool people at the camp fire here. We will get back at it tomorrow and are hoping for better wind conditions tomorrow.
Day 17 started at Exit 78 off the I10 where we had an early finish the day before because of the bad weather. On the ride back to the exit there was a lot of uncertainty about what the day would bring. The forecast called for more wind but we had no idea which direction it would be coming from. As we started out it became very apparent that today the wind was our friend. It only took a hour and forty minutes to make up the thirty miles we had lost the day before. At that point we decided to try and make it to the city of Van Horn which would have put us at 63 miles for the day. The roads were smooth and the wind stayed at our backs to Van Horn. We stopped there for our lunch break and were still feeling pretty fresh so we decided to ride another hour. At the end of the hour we realized that it would be possible to accomplish the century (100 miles) we weren't able to finish last week. We knew the century was possible but it was going to be hard because we had already climbed 1600 ft and ridden 63 miles but we charged on. Things fell in our favor unlike last Thursday and we finished the century on Highway 118 in Kent, TX. This was a first ever for Jimmy and it was a goal we set when planning the ride. We both felt redeemed after missing the century last week and the having to stop short yesterday because of weather. This was a very emotional moment for Jimmy because a year ago he could only ride a stationary bike for a total of 15 minutes and today he rode 100 miles and climbed over 2400 feet in 5 hours and 17 seconds!!!
El Paso to Sierra Blanca
Today was the first day back after a much needed rest. Jimmy went home for 24 hours to be checked out after his crash by Kenny Sheppard. This was to be our first full day in Texas and we knew the wind was going to be bad. We headed out of El Paso on the frontage road for the first 15 miles, at this point the wind wasn’t so bad. When we reached the I10 the wind really started to pick up and with that came the dust and sand. We tried putting on masks but they didn’t give up much relief. Our right ears and eyes filled up quickly with sand. At points it felt like we were being pelted by thousands of little needles and sometimes it seemed like we were sideways because of the cross winds. The wind was so bad we couldn’t take either hand off while riding and had to stop several times just to drink. Jimmy’s hands got sore because he was unable to move them around, this also contributed to stopping multiple times. Initially we had intended on riding 73 miles and were only able to ride 53 miles in 4 hours, at that point we decided to call it a day. So now we know why they say “Don’t Mess with Texas”. We are going to leave early tomorrow to make up the 20 miles we missed today and hopefully miss the wind. Don’t miss the picture of the tumble weed almost taking us out.
JB & Cory
East Bound & Down
